


Warmth

by lulumonnie



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: And LOTR Aftermath I guess, Angst, Battle of Five Armies Aftermath, Canonical Character Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Guess who rewatched the hobbit and cried like a little bitch, M/M, That's right. Me., This does have a happy ending of sorts but it takes a while to get there, but not really, no beta we die like men, or dwarves in this case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 16:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20343490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lulumonnie/pseuds/lulumonnie
Summary: The armies of light might have won that day, they might have triumphed over the hoards of abomination that had crept from the furthest pits of desolation, but Bilbo Baggins had lost. He had lost Thorin Oakenshield, and he knew in that moment that he would never again feel truly warm. Not without the dwarven king by his side.





	Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> So I rewatched The Hobbit and I couldn't help myself and wrote this angsty thing in one sitting instead of sleeping.

_If more people valued home above gold, this world would be a merrier place._

The moment those words left Thorin’s lips, Bilbo knew that he was too late. His pleas fell on deaf ears, his sobs were left unheard, alone in the cold winter air. Bilbo had thought he knew what pain felt like, after all losing his parents had hurt but there was no way to prepare him for the excruciating pain he felt when he saw the light leave Thorin’s eyes. The hobbit’s chest was ripped wide open, his heart stripped from him and the world was suddenly freezing cold. It was as if winter had truly come because there couldn’t be warmth in a world where such horrors were allowed to take place. As Bilbo lay on top of his dearest dwarf, he felt the cold seep into his very bones, his limbs were frozen with horror, with fear, with loss and grief.

The small hobbit felt his body shake as he gripped the King under the Mountain, desperately trying to wring him back to life, back to him. Bilbo cursed everyone he ever knew, he cursed Gandalf for sending him on this mission and making him leave his cozy hobbit hole in the Shire, he cursed the company, he cursed the dragon, he cursed the pale orc and he cursed the dwarf he was cradling in his arms. Most importantly, he cursed himself for not being fast enough, strong enough, agile enough. If he had been a fiercer warrior he would not have been so easily knocked out, he might have saved his King, he might have prevented the death of the most important person in his life. If he had been quicker on his feet, he would have been able to warn Thorin earlier and Fili and Kili might have survived. If he had been stronger then he would not have fallen for this dwarf, he would have been resilient, and his chest would not be void of any feeling except unbearable pain.

Bilbo did not know how long he had been sitting there, clinging to the stiff body of the one person he’d loved the most in all of middle earth, the one person he had been willing to give everything for, even his life and his love’s trust. It might have been minutes, it might have been hours or even days until Gandalf found him and pried him away from the cold, dead body of the King under the Mountain. The next hours passed in a painful rush for the small hobbit, his body was numb to any feeling and his mind was clouded by one thought: he had lost. The armies of light might have won that day, they might have triumphed over the hoards of abomination that had crept from the furthest pits of desolation, but Bilbo Baggins had lost. He had lost Thorin Oakenshield, and he knew in that moment that he would never again feel truly warm. Not without the dwarven king by his side.

When Bilbo stood in front of the tomb the dwarves had built for their king, he fell to his knees, his hands grasping at the cold stone, his own fingers freezing and clammy, just like Thorin’s life-less body in front of him. Gandalf had warned him that he would not be the same hobbit once he returned from his adventure but the halfling had not known how profoundly and irrevocably his unexpected journey would transform him and how much it would truly cost. He pressed his forehead against the cool stone and let the bitter, unrelentless cold sweep through him, only adding to the already withering ice that was now ingrained in his bones, down to the tips of his toes. As he felt the others touch his back and help him up, his tears streaming down his face he remembered what it had felt like to be warm, to feel at home and to feel as if the world might not be such a lonely and cold one.

Back in Hobbiton, in Bag-End, Bilbo had never really known the cold. He was always warm, a cozy, soft warm that stemmed from lovely autumn suns, comfortable armchairs and roaring fires in the hearth that kept his study snug and safe. It had been a slow, steady warmth that let him read his books and cook his meals in peace. He had felt content with this sort of warmth and he’d never felt the need to experience anything unlike this comfort of home. But then, one fateful day, a wizard came along, scratched a rune into his freshly painted door and thus the little hobbit had met the company of one Thorin Oakenshield and he had been introduced to a world that lay far beyond his warm hearth and his books.

The first instance in which the hobbit had felt an inkling of a new kind of warmth was when he listened to thirteen dwarves sing the song of their home. Bilbo had always been fond of music, but this music was unlike anything he had ever experienced. The halfling was transported over plains and over hills, over mountains and wide lakes towards fantastic places filled with light, laughter and love. He saw hills of gold, cities of stone, fortresses in mountains, armies in all their might, dragons spewing fire and he was swept away by an intense feeling of yearning, a thirst to know what exactly was out there, beyond his maps and his books and a warmth that was all-consuming and all-encompassing, roaring like fire and more thrilling than anything that the hobbit had ever felt. Later, Bilbo often blamed this strange experience for his tumultuous decision to leave everything behind and follow the company on their frankly mad adventure.

Throughout their journey to the Lonely Mountain, Bilbo often revisited this fantastical feeling and the longer he was a part of the company, the more he realised these moments often involved the leader of their small company. When the dreadful business with the trolls was in full swing and Bilbo was stalling the three thick-headed mountain trolls Thorin had looked at him with something other than contempt and doubt for the first time and when the hobbit caught his eye there was some inexplicable warmth coursing through him. Bilbo had not known where to place this exact feeling but as soon as he had felt it, he was addicted. His personal quest to gain Thorin’s favour and trust was now about more than just his pride. He wanted to feel that feeling of warmth and fulfilment again.

After he had escaped Gollum’s clutches and caught up to the party, he felt it again when he had made his little speech about home. Thorin’s expression changed from hard and guarded to something unplaceable. His frown lessened and Bilbo quietly thought to himself that the dwarf prince looked far more handsome with a smile than with a frown. The hobbit had felt warm again, which was quickly replaced with a rather unwelcome scorching heat from flames kindling in the trees around him as they hid out of reach of the wargs. The feeling returned tenfold when Bilbo saw Azog the Defiler take on the dwarf. Later, people would often attribute Bilbo’s enormous courage for his subsequent actions but in truth Bilbo had nothing of the sort in mind. There was simply a roaring, fierce flame that had taken a hold of his guts and that sent him reeling, pushing him to charge at the orc tasked with relieving Thorin of his head and killing him without any second thoughts. His inner fire didn’t dim as he faced down the pale orc alone; no matter how abysmal his chances seemed, he would not leave the prince’s side, no matter how many white wargs were headed for his shivering, small body on the floor, he would not stand down. The raging warmth filling his insides would not let him.

Later, when he’d first felt the tingling cold at Thorin’s seemingly life-less body on top of the Carrock, he re-examined this roaring feeling and tentatively tried to name it friendship. Anything else seemed far too bold, even though the warm hug that the dwarf gave the hobbit reignited the fire in a way that it seemed inextinguishable. The following days were filled with a new kind of warmth every time Thorin regarded him with a kind, respectful, even appreciative gaze. Bilbo felt content in Beorn’s lodgings and wished more than anything that they could all just stay with the skin changer and live their days in peace so that he might have more opportunities to sit with Thorin as he smoked his pipe weed and have him tell stories of home, of the riches and the gladness lying beneath the mountain and in the kingdom of Erebor.

When they crossed into Mirkwood, the glad, warm days the two unlikely companions had shared at Beorn’s seemed to belong to some distant fairy tale and the warm feeling in Bilbo’s gut simmered down to a nearly unnoticeable flicker of hope that once they were free of the dastardly tiring forest, they would be able to spend their days exchanging hushed whispers about past adventures and those still to come. When the spiders had taken the dwarves, Bilbo had found the furious desire to protect his friends rekindled and his fervour followed the dwarves into the elves’ woodland realm. He had spent days lurking in the shadows, never taking off his ring or resting, trying to find the dwarves, trying to discover a way out and stealing food from the kitchens to keep him somewhat fed.

It took him days to find all the dwarves and even longer for him to find a way to break the company out of the deepest prison in King Thranduil’s palace. He went to free Thorin first. As he slipped off the ring and sneaked towards the prince’s cell, he had felt his heart racing and his breath coming in short huffs, his entire body warm. When Thorin saw the hobbit unlocking his cell, the look that the two shared made Bilbo’s very essence light up with heat, a ferocious yearning taking hold of his every limb and the dwarf must have felt the same because in that moment the soon-to-be King under the Mountain seized his burglar and kissed him, soft, tentative but with such passion that it nigh on melted the poor hobbit in his tracks. The heat Bilbo had felt before was nothing compared to the all-consuming fire he felt when he kissed the dwarf. As the two parted and Thorin drew the smaller into a firm embrace, their foreheads leaning against each other Bilbo finally found a name for the heat consuming his entire being: love.

Their following adventures left little time for the two to find any moments alone but whenever they did, the hobbit and the dwarf would talk of their homes, their families and Bilbo would feel his chest swell with fondness, with affection, with heat and he vowed then to stay by Thorin’s side until the end. Bilbo would not leave his prince like he would not all those months before when he stared down Azog with nothing but a small elvish blade and a burning heart to aid him. Thorin and Bilbo made few promises to each other; such was the nature of their relationship and their quest. They had little certainty of coming out alive and thus they simply enjoyed their time together. As the dragon was destroyed and the sickness took a hold of Thorin, even those times were cut short and Bilbo felt his heart break piece by piece as he saw the dwarf he loved succumb to greed, casting away his friends, his kin and his true nature for that of a frail and jealous king. Seeing his beloved in such a way made Bilbo sick, and when he finally decided to stop the impeding war, he did so with the thought that this would surely be his doom. He had been ready to lay down his life for Thorin Oakenshield, ready to die just so that he may live, even if his death would be by that very dwarf’s hand.

* * *

As Bilbo was being tugged away from his love’s grave, he felt something slip from his grasp. It was the acorn that he had picked in Beorn’s garden. It had been during one of his talks with Thorin when he had suddenly stopped to pick up the gigantic acorn that the dwarf had nearly squashed under his feet. He remembered the fond look on Thorin’s face as he had pocketed it and later the small instant when Thorin, his Thorin had returned to him before the people of Lake-town had come to Dale. His eyes clouded with tears again and Bilbo heard Thorin’s last words echo in his head.

_Go back to your books and your armchair, plant your trees, watch them grow._

Bilbo sobbed. His hand was cold around the soft warmth of the acorn as he picked it up and he stuffed it into his pocket, not being able to look at the acorn he had promised himself to plant with Thorin by his side, wherever the two would have deemed fit.

Later Bilbo slipped away from the festivities, not being able to stay in the mountain that brought upon his love’s doom any longer. His goodbye to the remaining company was brief, shortened by his grief and his inability to muster a true smile but he hoped that he had conveyed his truest feelings of gratitude and affection to his dearest friends. The road home with Gandalf was far less perilous than their journey to the mountain but Bilbo had found it hard to appreciate the simplicity of their journey when his heart and body remained as cold as ice, no matter how many blankets and jackets he covered himself with.

In the years that followed, Bilbo slowly found enjoyment in little things, his journeys often leading him to elves that passed through the Shire on their way towards the Grey Havens and he found comfort in their serenity. His nephew, Frodo, who soon joined him in Bag-End managed to make the older hobbit feel more at peace and he started to tell the youngling tales of dwarves, elves, dragons and mountains filled with riches and true friends, true companions whose bonds lasted well beyond the restraints of life and death.

Years passed, decades passed and soon the journey that brought the hobbit to his life’s one true love and friend was 60 years in the past. Bilbo Baggins was old, his body and mind still agile but nevertheless he was old, and he had not felt true warmth in sixty years. When he left the Shire for the last time, he felt little regret, for he knew that his true home had long gone from this world. Bilbo was content to live out the rest of his days in the comfort of Rivendell, surrounded by the elves who were one of the few races in middle-earth to unequivocally understand the hardships of outliving those one cares for.

For Bilbo, the years until the final destruction of the One Ring passed by in a blur. His long life allowed him to witness more things in one lifetime than any hobbit before him and when the time for him to join those on the last ship out of middle earth came, he gladly took it.

As he stood on the shores of the sea, looking towards the light they were set to sail into, the acorn in his pocket suddenly seemed twice as heavy. Bilbo closed his fist around the last token he had of Thorin Oakenshield and embarked on his last adventure and as he passed through the veil of light that hid the realm of the Valar from the world of the living he felt a hand on his shoulder and for the first time in nigh on a hundred years, the hobbit from Bag-End felt warmth return to his body.

Until this day, there stands an Oaktree on the shores of Valinor and it is murmured that a simple hobbit from the Shire and a dwarven king can be found in its shade, resting and telling tales of adventures long forgotten and cities long lost.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this!! I couldn't stop myself from writing this as soon as I finished the movies because you can never have enough Tolkien content. Please let me know what you thought!!!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Warmth by Lulumonnie](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21165116) by [Justafewthingstosay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justafewthingstosay/pseuds/Justafewthingstosay)


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